Before the GST tax slab was passed there were rumors that the government might make sanitary pads tax free, however, when the tax slabs were announced, the whole story took a different turn.

The women of India were expecting that the government will remove taxation from sanitary pads which are more indispensable to women. When the tax slabs were announced women around the country were deeply disappointed because according to the new tax slab sindoor and bangles were made tax free and sanitary pads were put under the second tax slab of 12%. In the villages of India, there are girls who are not getting accessibility of sanitary pads and most of the women resort to unhealthy alternatives using newspaper, unsanitary cloth and plastics menstruation. Making sanitary pads tax free would have been appreciated by the women of India as most of the women around the country cannot afford it. The tax sanitary pads saw a deduction of 2.5 percent, making it 12 percent, which was 14.5 percent earlier.

People around the country took it to twitter to express their opinions.

The sad part of the story is that government has made sindoor, bangles and bindis tax-free instead of making sanitary pads which are indispensable for women in their daily lives during the menstrual cycle. In a country like India, where a menstrual issue is a serious issue, congress MP Sushmita Dev from Silchar Assam started a petition which was about removing a tax on sanitary napkins. According to the petition out of 355 million women in India, only 12 percent use sanitary napkins.

We hope that in future the government will work on this issue which is a major health concern for women of India.